Every year around mid-September in Portugal's remote Upper Douro valley the sound of festive singing can be heard echoing softly over the river Douro late in the evening. It is harvest time at Quinta do Vesuvio and the voice of the ‘capataz’, or foreman, can be heard from within the adega, urging the treaders on as they make the ‘corte’. Repeating an annual ritual that goes back generations, the work of crushing the freshly picked grapes is done not by machines, but by the feet of men and women in low-sided open stone tanks called lagares. The day has been long and the treading team will have spent the day in the vineyards picking the bunches of grapes by hand. It is for this reason that they sing, encouraging each other to continue treading, often late into the night.

Quinta do Vesuvio is the most spectacular Quinta in the Douro valley. Located in the wild and serenely beautiful eastern reaches of the Upper Douro valley, 120 kilometres east of Oporto and 45 kilometres from the Spanish border, Quinta do Vesuvio stands alone both in terms of remoteness and sheer grandeur.